I will.

The kids are sleeping - napping. I'm sitting here and I feel sad. I don't really want to feel at all. I'm trying to ignore these emotions stirring inside of me but they feel so strong. I feel alone. I feel like I don't have anyone to talk to or anyone who will just listen and try to understand me.
What am I so sad about? I don't really know. It's probably a mixture of a lot of things. I'm broke. I don't feel like I'm the best mom I could be or should be. I feel like my kids deserve more and better than me. I feel like I miss Bennett and I'm the only one that does.
You know, now that I think about it - how everyone feels about Bennett would be exactly how they would feel about losing me. If I were to die or whatever - it's how they would feel, little to nothing if anything at all.
My entire family acts as if it's never happened. Like I was never pregnant, he was never born, and I never suffered any loss. The only person who sometimes ask about Bennett or questions the adoptions and how I feel is Lailah. She's the only one who seems to care at all. I know she would be the only one to really care if I were to die too. But I believe she would be okay and she would move forward in life and gain a career and a family one day. I don't think it would effect her too much.
I honestly feel so alone and I feel that it's one of the worst feelings to feel. Alone. To feel as if nobody honestly cares about you and your wellbeing. That the only reason you are alive is because you care about your own life but you actually have no meaning at all to anyone else around you.
I have my two little ones and that should help me, that should make me feel better, right? But it doesn't. It doesn't because I feel they deserve more and better than me - just like Bennett. I feel they would move forward and get over their loss of me - just like Bennett. That they would forget me and just not really care - like Bennett. So why am I here?

I'm not giving up just yet though. I will do whatever it takes to be the best I can be for my kids. I brought them here, they didn't ask for this. Sure, they probably deserve better. But I'm here right now and I'm TRYING.
I will go to school. I will get good grades. I will graduate with my Masters degree. I will get a good job as a psychologist. I will own my own home one day. I will be able to give my kids more. I will be able to be the mother I aim to be.

Preparing to go back to school

I finally was able to get into my school portal account. I have a couple holds on my account so I won't be able to start school with those there. I need to bring in my W2 form and also a physical examination form as well as my vaccination record to go along with it. Then I should be good to go in that department. I also think I figured out orientation where I don't need to stay overnight. I'm going to call and make sure just in case. My mom was the one who supposedly scheduled for me so I want to check and be sure first and make sure I don't have to pay for anything. I also need to call about the opening weekend too (from what I've been told but don't really know anything about.).
My next concern is books. They're SO EXPENSIVE. Seriously. Just for 3 books it's about $200 just to RENT the books until November. That's INSANE. I have a couple options lined up on what to do about that and I'm hoping one will work out. One is that I'm going to talk to the financial supervisor woman on next Weds to see what I could do about books financially if anything at all. The next is to use my moms foundation to help me afford them. My mom has a foundation where people and children fundraise so they can afford things like books for college and extra-curricular activities. I'm going to need to know about both for future terms anyways.

My biggest worry and concern is that I will be away from Noel for what seems like SO LONG. About 20 hours - give or take - a week. Which feels like forever to me. I'm so nervous about leaving him. What if he misses me? What if he cries the entire time I'm gone. It will BREAK my heart! So bad. It really would. I'm also scared that my mom will just let him cry because she thinks he needs to get over it and suck it up. But he's only a baby. When school starts he will only be 9 months old. He doesn't understand or know anything about emotion control yet and being ignored could really fuck with his brain developmentally and emotionally long term. :(
I have no one else to trust him with though. My dad is less trustworthy than my mom I feel. And I can't afford to pay anyone to watch him. Seriously, we're barely making it from paycheck to paycheck. Scraping by. Which is a huge reason I am going to school and aiming for my Masters. Because I need this future job. I need to be able to make better money to support my family. At that point I will work full time and Justin will be a SAHD. Oh, and then we will get married. :D
I also don't want to end nursing. It's my bonding time with him. It's what we share together. So, I'm going to start pumping frequently. My goal is to have 100oz of liquid gold in the freezer by September. Classes start Sept. 9th.
I think tomorrow I'm going to try to make some lactation cookies and see how that goes.

Thoughts firing at me

I hate what adoption has done to me.
I hate that one day I feel good and okay. Then the next day it's like I trip and fall and it's a long climb to get back up to where I was before. Not only do I fall but I feel as if I get all scraped up and injured. I have so much healing to do over and over and over again. I'm tired of the flashbacks haunting me. I'm tired of the nightmares attacking me in my most vulnerable state.
I hate that whenever I try to find peace of comfort in the adoption my head doesn't let me. It comes back firing at me.

"It was what was best for him at the time."

"You also had Lailah at the time, it must have been best to give her away to strangers too."

"He deserved better than what I could provide."

"You had Lailah under worse circumstances and Noel under not much better ones - do they also deserve better than what you can provide."

"I love him enough to protect him and give him more."

"So, you didn't love Lailah and Noel as much, is that what you're saying?"

It doesn't stop. It's almost a constant daily internal fight. There's no winning. I lose against myself every time. How can I heal if my internal thoughts keep attacking me?

Feeling alright.

I haven't been too bad recently. I emotionally feel pretty well, I guess. I'm really excited to start school, although, I know it will require a lot of time and hard work.
Last night I had a nightmare. It was an adoption dream. I seemed to be in some parallel universe where I had placed my 2nd son for adoption as well. It was really awful. I guess in this dream my grandmother had adopted my 2nd son who was named Joel. I got to visit him once or twice a year but it really ruined me. In my dream I remember thinking how it was worse to know him and see him only to be ripped away from him time and time again.
I think my unconscious mind is trying to help me through my adoption with Bennett. I think my brain is trying to find ways to help me heal through this pain I feel often. It's trying to make something that is not okay feel okay. I don't think it will accomplish what it's trying to do though.
The only thing my brain seemed to accomplish is to make me even more Pro-choice. I think if I ever found out I was pregnant when I was in a situation where I knew I couldn't care for another baby at all, I would abort. Because I could never lose another baby to adoption. I don't know how women do it multiple times. I am struggling enough as it is just not having one of my children with me, I couldn't imagine what I would be like mentally and emotionally not having two or more of my children with me. It would ruin me, wreck me to pieces in so many ways.
Right now I am not "ruined" I guess, but mentally and emotionally I struggle. I think of Bennett all the time, I miss him. I wonder about what if's. What if he hates me? What if he never wants to know me? Stuff like that. I also tend to beat myself up about it. I rerun it in my head over and over and over and I try to figure out what I could have possibly done to keep him.
In my dream last night I was doing that, I remember. I was beating myself up about not keeping one of them. I was yelling at myself that I should have figured it out. I needed my babies.
I have to continue moving forward though. I have to continue for Lailah, Noel, and Bennett. I have to move forward and be a mom that they could feel proud of and happy to call their mom. I don't know what Bennett will feel or think about me. But I hope one day when we meet that he sees an accomplished women who did what she felt was best for him at the time who was strong enough to push through each day to make something of herself. To take the awful hand she was dealt and work with it, build upon it. I hope he'll forgive me.

In other thoughts of my head:
I can't get onto the student portal for school. I've called the school and so has my mom about it. Apparently they don't have my birth date in the system and therefore I can not log on. I'm going to call back on Monday and possibly even go there to try to fix everything. It's really freaking annoying and honestly a pain. I'm hoping I can figure out what my classes are so that I can buy the books ahead of time. I am so freaking excited and proud of myself!
I've been feeling really good recently. Not much depression or sadness. I do feel stressed and such and money is tight and that overwhelms me. But I'm doing well.
I have an amazing fiance who is just incredible, he's always here for me and supportive and loving.
I have two absolutely beautiful and amazing little ones who just mean the world to me. They're both just super good and loving children. I couldn't have gotten more lucky.
And I have an amazing best friend who although we don't talk to each other every single day, we always keep in touch and pick up wherever we left off. I can tell him and talk to him about anything.

Will that time ever come?

I'm feeling quite depressed.
I got mail from the school I'm trying to attend today which says that there is a mandatory, 2 day, overnight orientation. And it's $40 to attend. Wtf? I can NOT do that. I have a 7 month old I need to be home to nurse and care for and a 6 yr old. I can't leave them both for 2 whole days and overnight, that's crazy! I'm going to contact the school tomorrow to see if there are any other options.
I hate my life. Everyday I get up and I pretend all is well. I pretend that I'm okay. I pretend that I can do this. But it's just pretend. I'm not where I wish I could be and because I'm not, I can't be who I really want to be. I can't be this good mom that I wish to be. I can't even care for my kids and I pretend I can.
We're living in my dads apartment in one bedroom, barely getting by. It's pathetic. Justin is working all the time, nearly everyday, only to bring home less than $200 each week. We are barely scraping by. For the first time in my life I buckled and went and got foodstamps. I feel so weak. I hate this life. I hate that I couldn't have been born to supportive parents who lead me in the right direction. I hate that I had my children so young without being stable. I hate that I feel so alone in everything that I do. I hate it all. I want to cry but I just ignore it and pretend that everything is ok. But it's not.
School is my only way out. It's going to take between 5-7 years for me to get a stable job but it's worth it. But in the meantime, we're trapped. We're trapped and I will continue trying to fake it until I make it. But even then, maybe I won't be happy. I don't know.
Tonight I messaged Liz and asked how they are. She told me they're heading to the beach, which apparently is a super long drive which requires a hotel I guess. I only got 3 pictures. I feel disappointed, although, I should just feel grateful that I got a response at all. But instead I feel sad and disappointed. And out of those 3 pictures is only 1 of him alone. Just one. I then ranted to her about how fucking awful my life is and how shitty of a person I am. Yeah, I don't even care what she thinks about me anymore. Maybe unconsciously I'm trying to destroy the contact we have because it triggers me and it haunts me, and I hate it.

Recently I've been struggling with my relationship with Justin. I don't know what's wrong. I love him so much and I know he loves me. He's loving, kind, caring, supportive, understanding, compassionate, he's everything good that I ever wanted. But I guess I don't feel I deserve it. And when I'm feeling how I have been recently it bothers the fuck out of me. I don't want to tell him how I feel and I don't know why. I don't want him reading over my shoulder to find out what's going on with me. I don't want him to touch me or to kiss me. I just want to be left alone. I don't know what is wrong with me, all I know is that it has nothing to do with him and everything to do with me. I don't want our relationship to be ruined or to fail. I don't want to lose him in my life. But I can't shake or stop how I'm feeling. I don't know what to do. I feel so sad all the time and alone. I just don't know anymore.

I hate how I feel. I hate everything. Whenever I feel like this, I want to give up. I just want to fucking give up. I get all these awful thoughts in my head. Nothing I would follow through with. But they haunt me, torture me. I feel trapped and there is no way out.

Am I going to feel like this for the rest of my life? When will I ever finally be able to say. I am exactly where I want to be and I'm happy. ? Will that time ever come?

Can you imagine the pain?

Can you imagine? I'm not looking for pity here but just to get some people to understand. Can you imagine carrying a pregnancy.... feeling every kick and movement, hearing every heartbeat, watching every u/s.... Gaining weight, vomiting up your meals, and feeling your body become weak as it nourishes the fetus inside you sucking out your energy. Then you eventually go into labor... if you're like me five... six times.. going to the hospital and being put on machines, being injected with steroids and medications to help the pregnancy remain. Then eventually going into real labor and being in labor for five... seven... ten.... hours? Then pushing for who knows how long until finally a healthy baby is delivered. You hear this baby cry, screech ! You feel your heart tug at you as they rush this baby you delivered, YOUR baby, out of the room...
You are not permitted to go see this baby you just birthed, not right away, and doing so is going against the "morals" of the adoption plan you have set up.
But you do it anyways, the next day. You have to see this baby. You must hold him or her against you and breathe in your child's scent.
You go down to the NICU or nursery and your baby is crying frantically, screaming his or her lungs out. You walk over and you gently pick your baby up, sit down and lay him or her against your chest. He or she stops instantly, recognizing you as mother. But you have no carseat, no money, and will have no home if you leave this hospital with this baby right now. What kind of mother would you be, you question yourself? What kind of person and mother would I be to leave with this tiny little person with no means of caring for him or her at all? What kind of mother would I be to not stop and think about my other child back at home who needs me, who I can barely care for at this moment either? I'm a bad mother. He or she doesn't deserve me. They don't deserve me as a mother. I am useless, I am worthless. I can't be what they need me to be right now. I am alone, I have no support, no help. How can I keep my baby?
You stare down at him or her for hours, counting the eyelashes or the breathes this newborn takes. All of a sudden the prospective adoptive couple swoops in with their excitement. Your tears are ignored. They pressure you to hold "Their" baby. How can you say no? What can you do right now? How can you say, "I want more time?" How can you deny them? What an awful person you would be to take this moment away from them. How could you make them nervous about taking this little one home? How could you ruin them? Their emotions matter more than yours. You are unable to speak, scared to say anything wrong to these people so eager to take your baby from your arms.
You leave the room empty handed and go back to your recovery room alone. You cry your eyes out searching for any way to keep your baby but no ways are to be found. Nurses come in and you beg them to talk, they shake their heads and say they're too busy and shuffle out the door on their way. Nobody comes in to see how you're doing, although your cries are pretty loud and hard to muffle even with the pillows.
A lawyer comes in and tells you to follow him. He leads you into a large room that has two older women sitting at it. They gaze at your, as if they're staring deep into your soul. Then all this paperwork is pushed in front of you and a pen handed. The lawyer grazes through it telling you "initial here, initial here, now sign here". This is too much, this is too hard, you mentally and emotionally shut down. Your eyes glaze over and your hand glides over the papers just doing as told as you zone out. What else can you do? You leave, get in your car and drive home.
Later that night your breasts fill with milk and you try to sleep, you awaken hearing baby cries, your baby's cries, the ones you heard in the hospital before you picked up your baby. You dart upwards from the bed searching everywhere - where are these cries coming from? Too disoriented to realize they're coming from your own head. But they're real, too real. Your baby needs you, you need to find him or her.
Days pass and every night you wake from dreams screaming, instinct tells you to find your baby - even though your brain tells you that your baby isn't here. Your baby can't be found.
You beg the universe to please let this pain leave, please let it stop. But it doesn't. You're overcome with so much grief and nobody there to understand. You call a friend or a family member and you're told, "You did what was best, you'll survive". But you don't feel like you will. "You'll get over it, he or she deserved better". My other child deserves better too, I shouldn't be here. The world crumbles around you and your emotions are negated by everyone at every corner you look.
You end up going to check yourself into the hospital because you know you can't make it through this alone. Your emotions are too powerful, too strong. But you did the right thing, right? Your emotions don't matter at all. Who cares about how you feel. Except, you can't shut it off. It's there and it will never go away.

Cloning.

Thinking about Bennett's adoption hurts. Sometimes I feel like I want to make up a fake story and go along with it. Like he died in childbirth or something. It feels like that kind of loss but at the same time though, it isn't. But I feel ashamed to tell people I "gave him up for adoption". I hate it. It sounds and feels so awful. I don't even want to mention it because of the backlash I get. But I hate not being able to mention him - my son, that I carried and delivered. I hate just leaving him out of my birth stories or naming stories. I hate only mentioning Lailah and Noel and acting as if he had never existed, like the pregnancy never happened.
Adoption isn't understood. I either get too much glittery sunshine positivism which negates my feelings or I get insulted and attacked for it. I don't like either. It's unfair. Nobody cares about how I feel though. I'm often told that how I feel doesn't matter and that all that does matter is him and how he feels. I care about him, I really really do, but why don't I matter at all? My pain, my sorrow, my grief - I'm told that it's selfish to feel these things, but I don't know how to stop it. Why can't I make these feelings just go away?
I try to tell myself he's happy and he's doing well. But then I think, "He's happy and doing well, without me." And that really hurts. I then start to think, "Would that mean that Lailah and Noel would be better off without me too?" And I don't know how to find the answer, "No, they are happy and well with you." Because, what if they would be more happy and well with others? And why is the adoption of Bennett okay just because he may be happy and well, which he could have had if he had stayed with me as well?
Sometimes I feel like I do hate myself though because I feel like Bennett isn't mine, in a sense. He is theirs. He was born to me, yes.
But I feel like he was cloned at birth and he was born healthy and well. And in this alternate universe in my imagination - this life I feel I have lived - there was cloning. Cloning was a normal procedure done to help infertile or same sex couples have a baby. It was also a way to protect your own baby. In case the clone of child were to get sick they would have a 100% DNA match. I allowed my precious boy to be cloned so this family could have a baby and to possibly protect and save him in the future. After the cloning process there were two perfect, amazing, gorgeous little boys. But in a short time later doctors noticed that something had gone wrong. The chance of this happening was apparently high but not often told or talked about. The procedure went wrong and he died. It was my fault. I let him get cloned. I allowed this to happen to him. I didn't know all the risks. I was told that he would be fine, that he would be happy and healthy. I was told that everything would be okay. That I was just helping a family grow. I was told that I would be seen as this amazing person who helped bless others with a child. But I feel they lied! Because he is not okay. Now they have his clone - his clone who looks JUST like my child, smiles JUST like my little boy, cries JUST like my precious son. I want him back. I want my baby back. But there is no going back. They are happy as can be as all my pain seeps out of me. They feel pity for me. But they will not allow themselves to feel shame or sorrow. They didn't choose this, I did. They wanted their baby and I just obliged.
I left the hospital empty handed, my breasts seeping wet with milk that was meant for my baby. I wake nightly hallucinating my baby crying for me, I search the house for my son who is no longer with me. I think of them. I need to know the clone, I MUST know his clone. His clone is not him but his clone is like him and I HAVE to know what my son would have been like if he were here with me. I text them begging them to let me see pictures, let me know what he's like, let me know his new milestones, please - anything, just anything at all. It's all I have to hold onto now. The clone is all I have for my sanity to remain intact.
Now they pity me and they are thankful to me for sacrificing my son for them. They thank me constantly and let me know how brave I was to allow such to happen for their happiness. I didn't know this was going to happen. I didn't know I would feel like this. I get some pictures and sometimes a short video, and as happy as it makes me feel that his clone is doing well, thriving, and happy. I relive my grief and pain every single time I get pictures. My head tumbles around and I get thoughts such as, "But he isn't MINE." "HE will never be MINE." "MY baby is GONE. He can't come back!".
The pictures show me what my son MAY have looked like, MAY have sounded like, MAY have had a personality like, MAY have been like. But MAYBE not. Maybe this clone is nothing like my baby would have been, nothing like him at all. And I will never know.
Who knows, maybe one day the clone won't like his life or will feel he never belonged and he will be angry at me too. Maybe one day he will come to me and ask me why I did this to him, why I allowed this to happen. Maybe one day he will want to know me and want to treat me as if I am his mother. Maybe he will...
I don't know how I will respond to that and frankly, it scares me. I didn't mean for any of this to happen. I didn't know.

Feeling abandoned.

I've been on edge lately. I want to say, "I don't know what is wrong with me." But that would be a lie. I do know. I feel as if I can't heal or move forward from my past, from things that have hurt me to my very core.
Starting from way way back to when I was little... I feel like I can't heal or move forward from feeling as if my mom never truly loved me or cared about me. I wish I felt as if I was wanted by her but I don't, never have, and I don't think I ever will. It's something I need to learn to heal from and just accept but I don't know how.
After that is feeling as if I was always abandoned or sent away. I can't even tell you how many times I was dropped off at hospitals to stay the day or overnight, or left with therapists or a "big sister". Or sent to dance or cheerleading and forced to go even if I didn't want to or didn't feel good, so that my mom didn't have to parent me. At least that's how it felt to me. I felt like she'd rather pay others to care for me so that she didn't have to be around me. And that is such a shitty feeling. And it sucked even more that I got attached to these people who were in my life more than my own mother was and then they left me too. I was nothing more than a paycheck to anybody that I cared about growing up. And that really hurts, still.
All of my dance teachers and cheer coaches moved on in their lives and forgot about me. All my doctors and nurses that cared for me probably never thought about me once they left work. And my "big sister" - Karen, who I had for 4 years, she left to move to NY and she never looked back. She's never tried to find me. What was I to her? Why did she just abandon me? Why did they all just abandon me?
Then I grew up only to abandon someone I love very very much - my own son. I left him behind at the hospital in NICU with strangers. The difference is is that I think about him everyday. One day I hope to get to know him and have a relationship with him and be there for him. But I don't even know if he'll ever want that from me.

I'm hurting and I feel heartbroken. I feel left and abandoned and I never grieved these losses.

I feel like I never grieve, I never mourn. I don't know why, I don't know what is wrong with me. My great grandmother who I grew up with passed away years ago and I didn't feel anything, I didn't cry. My Uncle Rob and my Aunt Lisa who I grew up with both passed away too and still I felt nothing. Growing up many of my pets passed away and quite a few died tragic awful deaths and nothing. I feel like I have something wrong with bonding.. maybe it's due to all the abandonment I feel I went through.

The only people I can say I truly and honestly have a bond to and are close with are my kids, Justin, and Tom. That's seriously it, I feel. Just them. I love Bennett - but he's not even here for me to bond with. He's probably the only person I've ever mourned to begin with. Which I'm still mourning.

I guess I just had to get that off my chest.

At the moment I'm feeling sort of sad from thinking about all of that. I'm also feeling frustrated. I was trying to clean this room up but Noel was screaming his head off to be held. I picked him up and nursed him down to a nap but this room is still a disaster. Blah.

Well, until next time my fingers hit the keyboard...